The Tamesis
Galerie Philipp Zollinger will cease operations after seven years in Zurich, its founder announced today on Instagram.
“I have always believed in hoping for the best while preparing for the unexpected,” Zollinger said in a statement. “A few months ago, I wrote to you about resilience and flexibility. At the beginning of this year, I was ready to once again invest the time, energy and belief needed to move the gallery forward. I want to believe that the market is recovering and that there is a path to growth.”
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However, “it is increasingly clear that the global landscape has brought nothing but continued instability,” continued Zollinger, adding that the “necessary conditions” to sustain and grow galleries “no longer exist.”
The gallery’s compact roster leans toward Swiss and Scandinavian three-dimensional media artists, but also includes artists from Southeast Asia and the United States. Its most recent exhibition, held at Galerie Müller in Basel, Switzerland, which closed on April 18, was presented by Renée Levi, a Swiss painter associated with Basel’s abstract tradition, and Theo Eble, a painter, graphic designer and co-founder of the Swiss anti-fascist art collective Gruppe 33. (On the same day he announced his closure, London’s Hayward Gallery and the Audemars Piguet Center for Contemporary Art announced that they had commissioned Levi to create a large-scale project for the Hayward façade, which will open this fall.)
No future plans are listed on the gallery’s website, and the statement did not indicate how soon the operation would cease. His gallery is the latest in a wave of closures that have affected galleries around the world.
Galerie Philipp Zollinger closed its physical space in Rämistrasse in autumn 2025, citing “unstable” art markets. In a statement at the time, the dealer cited shifting trends in collecting — “arts are still being acquired, but on a smaller scale and less frequently” — and the increasing financial pressure to attend art fairs as factors forcing the closures. The gallery operated itinerantly before moving to a space in the gallery complex between the Zurich Opera House and the Kunsthalle Zurich.
Commenting on today’s announcement of the permanent closure, many of Zurich’s peers expressed their condolences to Zollinger and wished him well in his future endeavors. “Thank you for a wonderful time and for being such a great neighbor,” Schudi Gallery wrote, while Gregor Steiger congratulated Zollinger on “a great success.”
Zollinger concluded: “I face this new reality with a heavy heart, but also with deep gratitude. To the artists who believed in my vision, to everyone who supported the gallery, participated in our exhibitions and believed in our project: thank you. You made the dream of building this space a reality, and that’s something I will always remember.”
